Harnessing the power of the many

The Gallifrey Foundation practices “venture philanthropy”

About

The Gallifrey Foundation practices “venture philanthropy”

This is characterised by:
• Focusing on measurable results
• Building capacity with a long term view
• Willingness to experiment and “try new approaches”
• Contributing financial, intellectual, and high personal involvement

We encourage collaboration between other organisations to:

Objectives

Marine Protection

The Gallifrey Foundation seeks to identify collaborative opportunities to tackle the most pressing ocean conservation issues facing us today. There are many organizations already deeply involved in the issues we care about and our mission is to assist them by identifying synergies that could be exploited and roadblocks that could be overcome by working together.

Our model of engagement is to partner with organisations, schools or businesses on the ground, draft a pilot project as a testing case, and then scale up the solutions based on the lessons learned.

Education

The Gallifrey Foundation seeks to foster social enterprise, applying commercial strategies to improve human and environmental well-being, rather than simply maximising profits for external shareholders.

The Gallifrey Foundation supports several scholarships for a variety of students from primary, university and post-graduate education. In addition, the Gallifrey Foundation supports selected research in social enterprise.

03

Oceans

Deep Sea Mining

Primary Micro-Plastics in the Oceans

Marine Education

Sea Fever

Plastic Free Campus

Plastics Pollution – Azores

Plastics Pollution - Maldives

Plastics Pollution - Jordan

Arctic

Deep Sea Mining

When we ask ourselves to consider if we have been good stewards of our natural resources we must admit we have not always lived up to our potential.

When we look at the oceans these failures are manifest; 90% of the large fish have been fished to unsustainable levels. Our fishing fleets have scoured vast parts of the seabed and destroyed vital habitats and ecosystems, we are dumping an estimated eight million tons of plastic into the oceans every year creating enormous gyres of plastic waste, fish, birds and other marine animals are being choked and suffocated by this waste. No, we have to admit we have not done a good job.

There is, however, one area where it is not too late and where we have the chance to get it right – the deep sea.

To lay out the issues and suggest a responsible way forward the Gallifrey Foundation has produced in collaboration with the IUCN “Deep seabed mining – A rising environmental challenge”

Primary Micro-Plastics in the Oceans

Plastic has penetrated everyday life: from clothing to coatings and from transport vehicles to cleaning products. Plastic is cheap, durable, lightweight and malleable, resulting in a practically unlimited number of possible applications. The disadvantages of plastics however are becoming more and more visible. Large quantities of plastics leak into rivers and oceans, with adverse effects to marine ecosystems and related economic activities

Plastic wastes include all size residues, from large visible and easily removable items, to small invisible particles. This report investigates the sources of primary microplastics; i.e. microplastics that are directly released into the environment as small plastic particles (< 5 mm size).
The Gallifrey Foundation has supported the research and production of this report.

Marine Education

The majority of educational resources that explain the issue of plastic pollution are created in English and largely directed at children in developed countries.

To address this gap for children in the developing world, the Gallifrey Foundation engaged PCI Media Impact to create a new comic based on SDG Goal 14 – Life Below Water. Already produced in several languages including Hindi and Bahasa Indonesian and distributed via Ministries of Education this project is helping to raise the profile of this issue in national curricula and promote a sense of individual responsibility and encourage action to reduce marine debris. Behaviour change at a young age can instil habits and a sense of environmental citizenship for life.

www.comicsunitingnations.org
If you are interested in printer-ready versions of the comics, please write to: info@mediaimpact.org Poseidon Patrol – SDG 14.

Sea Fever

The greatest danger to the oceans is not pollution, acidification or overfishing but the ignorance and apathy that allows these incidents to occur in the first place. To promote a better understanding of the oceans’ importance, the Foundation commissioned Sea Fever – People and their Ocean Planet.

Written by the Foundation’s Advisor on Marine Programs, Dr. Luc Cuyvers, Sea Fever – People and their Ocean Planet examines how we have used (and sometimes abused) the ocean throughout the centuries.

Plastic Free Campus

The Gallifrey Foundation has completed a pilot program entitled Plastic Free Campus, working with international schools to mobilise student action on single-use plastics consumption. This has involved closely working with our pilot schools to establish the best way to create change at four levels: in the curriculum, in the school community, in cross-campus and inter-school networks and in larger institutional bodies like the International Baccalaureate Organisation. The self-directed programme is now being prepared to be available online and to scale globally. Coming early 2019. Visit http://www.plasticfreecampus.org

Plastics Pollution – Azores

The Gallifrey Foundation funded the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) research project. Establishing a Baseline on Marine Litter in the Azores – AZORLIT in collaboration with IMAR Center of the University of the Azores, the Observatory of the Azores (OMA and the Regional Directorate for Maritime Affairs (DGRAM).

Plastics Pollution - Maldives

The Gallifrey Foundation has collaborated with IUCN Maldives to carry out a local Reef Guardian project, a community-oriented project to encourage sustainable reef behaviour. Working with the Maldivian Ministry of Education, changes to the national curriculum are being proposed in order to better institutionalize education on this topic and encourage youth-led action.

Plastics Pollution - Jordan

The Gallifrey Foundation has worked with Experience Jordan to develop plastic free hikes on the Jordan Trail. This has required rethinking how meals and water are sourced and delivered along this multi-day hike. Hikers have been encouraged to collect trash along the way.

As much as this may seem counter-intuitive, limiting plastic waste, even in the desert, makes sense because over the centuries as these materials break down into smaller and smaller pieces they will be flushed from the wadis and streams eventually into the sea. “Pick up a piece of litter in the desert and save a fish”.

Arctic

By the middle of the century the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free for at least part of the year, confronting humanity with a dilemma: exploit the Arctic Ocean the way we have exploited all of the ocean, or keep it untouched, the way it has been for thousands of years.

The Gallifrey Foundation is strongly committed to the second option: an option which would ensure we hand over at least one part of the ocean in the shape we received it. To help the many organizations that share this goal become more effective, the Gallifrey Foundation supports programs that coordinate and maximize cooperation among them. No single organization can protect the Arctic from development. Only by all of us working together do we stand a chance of being heard.

04

Education

Gallifrey Scholarships

The Gallifrey Foundation provides scholarships to students at the following institutions

Harvard University

Millfield School

Alexandria Public Schools

Projects

Research in Social Enterprise

A solution to the financial challenges facing micro-entrepreneurs in Ghana is the objective of a research project from London Business School led by Professor Rajesh Chandy, The Tony & Maureen Wheeler Chair in Entrepreneurship and Academic Director of the Business for Development Institute supported by the Gallifrey Foundation.

The research project will identify the effectiveness of different loan products designed to give micro-enterprises the boost they need to become successful small and medium enterprises.
Half of the businesses in the study are offered a ‘locked-in’ product, where the loan funds must be invested in business assets focused on enhancing productivity such as new equipment, inventory or vehicles. The other half of the businesses are offered the second ‘unlocked’ product, where the loan funds are unrestricted and the entrepreneur can decide how they would like to spend the money.

The researchers will be tracking each of the businesses over time to compare the effects of the two loan types on how the entrepreneurs manage money, how their businesses perform, and how they and their families are affected by this.

The Salient

The Salient is a film about one of the most contested spots of the Great War: the half circle north and east of Ypres that protruded into enemy territory and became known as the Ypres Salient. Less than five miles wide, more than a million people were killed or wounded in this small area during four years of bitter fighting. In due time the Salient came to symbolize every description heard in conjunction with the Great War: sacrifice, courage, honor and duty just as much as chaos, slaughter, calamity and utter senselessness.

The Gallifrey Foundation support allows the film to be made available at no cost to schools worldwide. Click here for more information on the film and download links: The Salient

06

Team

Antoinette Vermilye - Co-Founder

John Vermilye - Co-Founder

Luc Cuyvers

Alexis McGivern

Antoinette Vermilye - Co-Founder

Antoinette has specialised on communications, marketing, graphic and interior design. She is passionate about marine conservation issues and has been an active participant in supporting the work of the IUCN, International Union for the Conservation of Nature. This includes a baseline study of marine plastics in the Azores, public awareness and action to reduce marine plastics in the Maldives and a study of micro-plastics in the oceans. She leads the Foundation’s Marine Plastics programme and the impact of plastics on human health.

John Vermilye - Co-Founder

A graduate of Harvard University and alumnus of the London Business School, John’s career has been built around the airline industry. He is the owner and Chairman of Travel Sentry which sets standards for the luggage and airline industry and provides solutions which benefit passengers, airlines, airports, security agencies and customs. John has been active in marine conservation issues since co-founding the Mare Nostrum Foundation in the 1980s and serves on the Board of Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue.

Luc Cuyvers

A graduate of New College, Luc earned his Ph.D in Marine Policy from the University of Delaware. He is the author of several books on marine issues and produced a number of significant documentaries on ocean topics, including he Blue Revolution, Sea Power and Setting Sail. Aside from his media work, he is an Associate Professor at the Netherlands Maritime University, where he teaches a graduate course on Ocean Management and Marine Policy. Among Luc’s many published works are Sea Fever and the IUCN Report – Deep seabed mining – A rising environmental challenge. See Section 2 – Marine Protection to download these.

Alexis McGivern

Alexis earned her MA in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews. She is a Marine Programme Officer at the IUCN in a position funded by the Gallifrey Foundation. Amongst other Gallifrey projects she specializes in plastics issues, especially closing the tap and promoting zero waste and sustainability. She is the creator and lead on the Plastic Free Campus project which is now scaling across multiple sectors and geographies.

07

Partners

We work with others to foster collaboration and achieve our mutual goals more effectively